Biggest film festival yet

This year's event, from May 6 to 20, features more than 60 movies, as well as internationally renowned special guests.

The 16th Annual Vancouver Jewish Film Festival (VJFF) starts next week. It will feature twice the number of titles as last year's festival, offer several new events and host such special guests as filmmaker and actor Richard Benjamin, director Ted Kotcheff and astronaut Roberta Bondar. Here is just a brief glance at what you'll be able to take part in, including some 63 movie offerings from 17 countries.

More than movies to see

Benjamin will be honored with the VJFF's first annual Tribute, presented to an industry professional who has made significant contributions to the Jewish film genre. The Tribute will be held on May 11, when the filmmaker and his wife, Paula Prentiss, attend a special screening of My Favorite Year (Benjamin's directorial debut). Benjamin will participate in a discussion following the film. Also screening in the Benjamin retrospective are Mermaids, Laughter on the 23rd Floor and The Sunshine Boys.

The VJFF is launching another first annual event, which this year will be a special retrospective screening of the Canadian classic Joshua Then and Now, with director Ted Kotcheff (The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, First Blood, Law and Order) introducing the film on May 9.

Bondar, Canada's first woman in space will introduce the film The First Israeli in Space on May 12. The film is one of 29 productions from Israel being showcased. It follows the footsteps of Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut.

The festival will also feature many other guests and special events, including a free panel discussion about screenwriting, with writers Joel Bakan, Mort Ransen, Ben Ratner and Karen X. Tulchinsky and moderator David Spaner, Province movie critic, at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver May 16.

Escaping the Inquisition

The festival opens Thursday, May 6, with Secret Passage. A United Kingdom/Luxembourg production, this film is beautifully shot, mainly in Venice. It also features some big name actors, such as Katherine Borowitz (The Man Who Wasn't There) and John Turtorro (Big Lebowski).

The film begins in 1492 Spain. Isabel (Borowitz) and her younger sister, Clara (Tara Fitzgerald), are sent to Holland by their parents (who the two never see again) to escape the Inquisition. There, they are happy for a time, and Clara marries and has a daughter, Victoria (Hannah Taylor Gordon). Unfortunately, Clara's husband is killed while helping other Jews escape the Inquisition, and the sisters and Victoria are forced to flee again, this time to Venice.

The movie is less than 15 minutes old by the time the three end up in Italy, where, it seems, freedom (and anything else you want) can be bought. This works to the women's benefit, as they are a relatively wealthy family, and Isabel manages to secure safe passage to Istanbul, where Jews are permitted to live in freedom without fear of persecution. However, rarely do the best laid plans come to fruition without incident and "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

Secret Passage gets gripping once things start to go awry. A bittersweet tale of family, survival, greed, revenge and the price of freedom, it's a great way to start off the festival. It plays at Oakridge Cinemas, 7 p.m., and is followed by a gala reception.

– Cynthia Ramsay

Friends despite intifada

In 1999, the Japanese government sponsored a peace mission in which 10 Israelis and 10 Palestinians got to know each other and build trusting friendships. A short time after they returned home, the second intifada broke out, setting the stage for the documentary Behind Enemy Lines, directed by Dov Gil-Har.

In the film, old friends Adnan Joulani, a Palestinian journalist, and Benny Hernes, an Israeli police officer, reunite to spend four days leading each other to specific locations that each feel is crucial to understanding their people's side of the bitter conflict.

Since they last saw each other, Joulani experienced the death of his cousin, shot dead by an Israeli settler, while another cousin had engaged in a shooting rampage in the heart of Tel-Aviv. Hernes, a settler, had been training special Israeli forces to combat Palestinian militants.

Joulani and Hernes don't always see eye to eye, but there is an underlying respect that they have for each other that continues to develop throughout their friendship. Both very proud of their heritage and the rights of their people, Joulani and Hernes offer a glimpse into the potential for understanding between these two very different worlds.

Behind Enemy Lines shows at the Oakridge Cinemas, Monday, May 10, at 4:30 and 7 p.m. Gil-Har will be in attendance.

– Kyle Berger

Singled out by Nazis

The Man Who Loved Haugesund is a fascinating examination of the life of Polish Jew Moritz Rabinowitz, who came to Norway in 1911 and built a clothing empire from nothing.

The film opens with a shot of the ubiquitous Rabinowitz clothes hanger that is still used in Norwegian households. The lone Jew in Haugesund, Rabinowitz worked to ensure his company's quality and success. Regardless of his efforts though, he remained an outsider - no one had him in their home, no club asked for his membership. By 1933, Rabinowitz had foreseen Hitler's plans for the destruction of European Jewry and began writing pointed and outspoken editorials in the town's newspaper. This outspokenness led to him being singled out by the Nazis as the first person marked for capture during the occupation of Norway.

Through witness interviews, those who knew him and worked for him describe Rabinowitz's qualities as an employer, but more telling are comments about his Jewishness. Those interviewed characterize him as a man with a lust for power, with an "appetite for ruling," asserting that "it was all business and money" with Rabinowitz and that his wife's reported favorite pastime was "sitting at the register receiving money." The people of Haugesund admired Rabinowitz, but perhaps more importantly they feared him as a successful Jew.

Oblivious to their own latent anti-Semitism, to this day there are those in Haugesund who claim that it was Rabinowitz's own greed that led to his capture. The viewer is compelled to grapple with this story and its resonant lessons.

The Man Who Loved Haugesund plays in Norwegian, with English subtitles, May 10 at 9:15 p.m., at the Norman Rothstein Theatre. It follows The Danish Solution, a documentary about the Nazis' attempt to implement the Final Solution in Denmark, a plan that was averted, and more than 90 per cent of the country's Jewish population survived the war.

– Basya Laye

Bible's comical side

When you think about it, there are some pretty disturbing stories in the Bible. Murder, incest and sodomy are just a few of the subjects that come up in Genesis. It may seem ironic, but this reality becomes readily apparent in the comedy The Real Old Testament, a parody of the first reality show, MTV's The Real World, and a parody of the Bible itself, or at least its first book.

God, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Abram and Sarai, Jacob, Rachel and Leah, and a host of other characters from Genesis have agreed to have their lives videotaped. Their stories are presented by a very talented group of actors, led by Curtis Hannum, the film's co-director, as God. The movie's other director – Paul Hannum – has a less prestigious, but no less important, role as the sock-puppet serpent (he prefers to be called "snake") in the Adam and Eve segment.

The Real Old Testament is very funny. While based on the biblical stories, it's a unique look at what might have been said, but wasn't recorded, in the Bible. This is not a movie for the young or the conservative-minded. There is (blurry) nudity, there are explicit sexual references and the film really pokes fun at the Old Testament.

The film festival screening is a Canadian première and co-director Curtis Hannum will be in attendance (maybe as God?). It plays at Oakridge Cinemas, Saturday, May 15, at 9:45 p.m., and Sunday, May 16, at 9:15 p.m.

– Cynthia Ramsay

An ill-fated love affair

Concentrating on a group of artists, poets, playwrights and actors in pre-independence Palestine, Paper Snow explores the nature of myth through the nascent community of cultural pioneers. Tel-Aviv has become a bustling cultural centre, attracting the immigrant bohemians who begin gathering in a few new local cafés, struggling to create a renewed Hebrew culture of their own.

Hanna Rovina, a charismatic theatre actress, known as "Queen of the Jews," reigns supreme in the national theatre. She meets and falls madly in love with Alexander Penn – a controversial poet, anarchist and drunkard. Their passionate love affair flourishes but their love cannot withstand the growing gap between two artistic egos. Love turns to torment and their relationship self-destructs, leaving them both to pick up the pieces on their own.

Visually pleasing, the film is shot almost entirely in sepia-tones, giving it a pre-war and slightly archival quality. It features several historical Israeli cultural icons, including Biyalik, Ussishkin and Gershon Scholem. Paper Snow touches on the issue of cultural myth-making and nationalism, but never resolves these themes, instead concentrating on the ill-fated love affair between two great artists.

Paper Snow screens in Hebrew with English subtitles at Oakridge Cinemas, Sunday, May 16, at 2 p.m., and Tuesday, May 18, at 9 p.m., at the Norman Rothstein Theatre.

– Basya Laye

Where, when and how

The Vancouver Jewish Film Festival runs from May 6 to 20, with screenings at the Norman Rothstein Theatre (950 West 41st Ave.), Oakridge Cinemas (601-650 West 41st Ave.) and Pacific Cinémathèque (1131 Howe St.). Programs are available at the above venues, the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture (6184 Ash St.), select VanCity locations and at various merchants throughout the Lower Mainland.

Tickets are available by phone at 604-488-4300, online at www.vfjj.org or in person at the VJFF ticket booth at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, Monday through Thursday, 10:30 a.m.-1 p.m., and 5:30-7:30 p.m., on Friday from 10:30 a.m.-1 p.m., and on Sunday from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Advance ticket orders must be placed by 7 p.m. the day before scheduled screenings. After that time, tickets may only be purchased at the door.

Tickets are $11, $7 for students/seniors and $6 for matinées. The May 6 Opening Night Gala screening and reception is $30 and the May 20 Closing Night Gala screening and wrap party is $20. A Festival Pass, good for all screenings except opening and closing night, is $99. A Premier Pass, which permits entry to all screenings, is $125.

For more information, please call 604-266-0245, e-mail [email protected] or visit the Web site, www.vjff.org.

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